Trump: I originally backed Luther Strange because Moore couldn't win

President Donald Trump claimed Wednesday morning that he knew Republican Roy Moore, who he endorsed ahead of Tuesday’s special Senate election in Alabama, would be unable to win because “the deck was stacked against him!”

Trump tried to claim Wednesday morning that he had been right all along about the race, because he had initially endorsed Luther Strange, who ultimately lost to Moore, in the Alabama primary.

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“The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!”

Later Wednesday morning, he tweeted: "If last night’s election proved anything, it proved that we need to put up GREAT Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and Senate."

Moore was defeated Tuesday night by Doug Jones, the first Democrat from Alabama elected to the Senate in 25 years. Moore, a former chief judge of Alabama’s Supreme Court who was twice thrown off the bench for refusing to follow judicial orders, was accused during the campaign of sexually molesting and assaulting girls as young as 14 when he was a district attorney in his 30s.

Trump's Wednesday morning tweet followed one from the previous night, when he congratulated Jones on a "hard fought victory."

Trump had initially called on Moore to drop his Senate candidacy if the allegations were true, but wound up coming back into the Republican candidate’s fold last week with a full-throated endorsement. Trump recorded a robocall on Moore’s behalf that rang Alabamians’ phones earlier this week and hosted a rally last Friday just across the state line in Pensacola, Florida.

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While Trump on Wednesday touted his support for Strange, he privately expressed doubts about his endorsement even before Alabamian voters cast ballots in the GOP primary. The president held a rally for Strange in Alabama, but only at the urging of others, where he delivered a speech that famously included a screed against NFL players who protest during the national anthem. "I might have made a mistake," the president told the Alabama crowd at the time.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), once a loud critic of the president's who has more recently become a golf partner and cheerleader of Trump's, echoed the president's Monday-morning-quarterbacking with a post to his own Twitter account, bashing former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who loudly backed Moore's campaign.

"When it comes to Alabama politics Steve Bannon should have followed President @realDonaldTrump lead in supporting Luther Strange," Graham said Wednesday morning. "Trump’s instincts on the Alabama race proved to be correct."

It was unclear what Trump meant with his suggestion that “the deck was stacked against” Moore, given Alabama’s status among the most conservative states in the nation. The state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992, when Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) ran as a member of the opposite party before becoming a Republican. The state has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976.

The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!

"He's often berated women and made them feel that they cannot be heard, as well. And what I'm seeing today and what this election of Doug Jones is about is a statement by particularly women, African-American women, and the African-American community, coming out and saying we are going to vote our values," Gillibrand, who Trump attacked online on Tuesday with a tweet that some saw as laden with sexual innuendo, told NBC's "Today" show.

"This was an election about what we feel and our values and what we care about. And I think President Trump is wrong. He is a bully, and he has been attacking different people across this country since he's been president," she said. "Women have stood up, have fought hard, have spoken out about their beliefs, and they've not stopped. And so I think that is a testament to this election, and because of it, I have hope for this country."

Former Vice President Joe Biden, whose relationship with Jones dates back to Biden's 1988 presidential campaign, said he spoke to Jones three times on Tuesday. Biden headlined a rally in Alabama for Jones early on in his race against Moore and was perhaps the highest-profile Democrat to appear in-state on Jones's behalf. The former vice president said Jones was "over the moon" and "really anxious to get to work" in the Senate in the wake of his Tuesday night win, praising the senator-elect for using his victory speech to call on Congress to renew the Children's Health Insurance Program instead of bashing his GOP opponent.

The former vice president also suggested that Senate Republicans were likely breathing a sigh of relief in the wake of Moore's defeat, pleased that they would not have to be associated with Moore, a controversial firebrand even before the allegations of child molestation came out.

"Probably some if the happiest people in America today are the Republicans in the senate. No. I genuinely mean it," Biden, a former senator, said on "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday. "What I mean by that is that the divisiveness that was caused within the Republican party by Bannon and all the sort of bile that comes out of the administration is just -- I know the majority of the members on the Republican side and they're decent people. They’re not comfortable in this territory."